Hadi Atallah

“If there was death, it may lie in the hopes of man, because there lays a population of forces that generate wealth for that.” Gilgamesh spoke.

“It is necessary to know much,” Homer then said. “For that matter, even profane worship would be permitted if the devils showed any sign of needing or wanting it.”

These rich men were the known poets of our history. They were slim, handsome men with saintly faces, like the one in the pictures in temples and churches. May have been from the nations of warriors and fanatics, perpetually damaging and triumphing, persecuting and fighting, working and creating, marching forward with the living and the dead.

“…And the acts of sabotage causing the adventures in people,” Homer said. “Odysseus, I had written long, abject chronicles in the past. Examining the reasons for erection and promising to find its remedies.”

“Of course, this was not in itself a discovery,” Gilgamesh said. “Men without this talent have been wiped out. Luckily, when my epic had unrolled it, lust had been upside-down from the point of view of a demigod. From somewhere between the bottom, I have finally found life.”

Gilgamesh paused involuntarily. “Truly it is in myth that one finds the word, so when we are in legends, then this word is nearest, of all to us.”

“This is the sweet taste of solitude,” Homer then said.

“You can always take her out for a walk,” Gilgamesh said. “There is a word for it.”

Homer eyed him with a sort of guarded curiosity. “Although the comets supposedly travel faster than sound,” he said, trying to guess telepathically.

“Yes,” Gilgamesh went on. As though nothing he ever wrote ever made sense. But it did choke the readers. “The word I’m looking for is Bleed.”

“There is a whole tribe of women who just do that. It’s their intellectual stimulant.” Homer said.

“They might even be completely true,” Gilgamesh said. “Enkidu’s first attempt and everything was crystal clear. I was standing outside the temple when this animal finally bought himself a life.”

“When I plausibly could have said that he was trying to buy himself some razor blades,” Homer scoffed good-naturedly.

“I was passing…” Gilgamesh said with vivid imagination. 

“You’re the perfect gentleman,” Homer cut him off.

“But I just looked in. Nothing did I want in particular.” Gilgamesh said. “Who cares about genuine love, even the few that’s left?” 

“Anything old and ancient, and for that matter beautiful…” Homer said.

“Now, if you happen to be interested in the Self,” Gilgamesh began delicately.

“I know that!” Homer exclaimed. “This was the kind of dance.”

Gilgamesh knew that place as well. Illustrating his enemies and their atrocities with evocation. Yet so far as Gilgamesh and Homer could remember they had never in their lives heard the birds sing. It was perhaps not more dangerous than coincidence. Then the spasm passed, leaving a dull ache behind.

Anything old, and for that matter anything round, was always absurdly beautiful for the little fox. With no one watching the moon, no voice or howl pursuing its eloquence in the sky, no voice but the cricking sound of the cold wind and the singing of crickets; the little fox hung on the other side of the world, opposite the moon.

“Mister Clement, this is my name,” the little fox smiled apologetically.

“Where are the others,” said the moon. But when the moon said those words the little fox had the illusion of actually hearing love. The love of a lost dream that had still existed somewhere among the stars.

The light in the little fox was unfailing, but there was difficulty in recognizing its kind. It was enough that the moon was watching Mister Clement. Probably she had seen the little fox go into discreet places as well. 

“How do you like my monocle?” Mister Clement said.

“You are not the same,” the moon perceived. “Do you want to be a wolf instead?”

“I try with a little more success than before to summon the image of a wolf,” Mister Clement the little fox replied. “And the place where there is no darkness is always imagined to be the future. You are the moon after all.”

“There is no place where you could be more certain that foxes are watched over,” the moon told Mister Clement. “Perhaps the sun should exist in your life after all.”

The morning was more bearable. Immediately after breakfast there arrived a delicate, difficult Mister Clement, his soul writhed with magic. And with a sufficient buzz of howls and groans all round, the sun then said, “It might be possible to exchange a few words.”

Mister Clement sauntered casually towards the hilltop, his eyes searching for a place at some landing where his mind could perceive the beyond. He sat down with a friendly smile. The sun beamed into his eyes. There was a silence unlike any other, as if Mister Clement’s surroundings abandoned the power of speech. You see, foxes listened to the everything that cracked or hissed and yet nothing moved. There was a silence beyond imagination.

Mister Clement had a hallucination of himself flying up towards the clouds. But then came a tremendous crash, which Mister Clement evidently suspected of having cuts and bruises. Seconds later, with a thundering metaphysical morphing, Mister Clement was sitting next to the moon while the world exchanged a few necessary words in low expressionless voices:

We always run for higher ground, don’t we?
But that eagle,
That eagle was hungry.

And it had already seen you, Mister Clement.

It was known among the wolves; among the mountain gatherers; it was known in the ancient temple, for the shamans of the forest whispered about her. And the morning of that day a canoe lay on the riverbank, too many things to question when Colossus went to rescue a war. There was no self-consciousness about his joining with his twin flame, Colossi. And as he walked toward her temple the crowd grew behind him. Then she heard the tramp of feet of the approaching crowd, and her visions grew faster and faster.

“No one has ever seen such a war,” she said. “It is large and clumsy.”

Colossus’ face grew dark and dangerous. “It is worth your diligence.”

And Colossi felt a little tremor of euphoria. “What is diligence?”

“I have heard fathers tell of it. But some may say that it goes against religion. The wisdom of the ages speaks of oneness. Through diligence and self-control, we can ascend to the unity, realizing our true unfoldment as a natural process of the astral, transcending to the ether. In this process lies strength and will, for to know this process is to possess the key to diligence.”

The crowd then whispered together. The war was large, but it had strange tales from foreign lands. War was comparative wealth to men after all, men who were indeed not wealthy at all. And everyone considered their part in the picture.